A Mix of Beer, Bragging Rights and Horse Races at the Cheltenham Festival

PRESTBURY PARK, England — This is the place where horse stories become myths and the humans around them become legends. It is where horses glide over this soft ground, soaring over undulating hills as if they were big waves before taking flight over hurdles and steeplechase fences.

The Cheltenham Festival, which originated in 1860 and has taken place at Cheltenham Racecourse since 1911, is the premier event of England’s steeplechase season. It is held over four days, beginning on March 15 this year, and its start is eagerly counted down the way children anticipate Christmas. It explodes into Mardi Gras, however, as soon as the jumpers pass the grandstand on opening day in the first of 28 races.

The Festival usually falls around St. Patrick’s Day, and the Irish come here, about 100 miles west of London, in force to root for their horses against their English rivals’ for a full year’s bragging rights. It is as much a cultural event as it is a celebration of a way of life where horses are more than part of the rural landscape; they are like family. So then it is natural to quaff a pint and put a pound or two on the one you think is the fastest.

“It is about passion and gambling and a whole lot of drinking,” said Michael Dickinson, now a successful thoroughbred trainer in the United States known as the Mad Englishman for his eccentricities, who comes each year for a taste of his heritage. “But it’s the most knowledgeable crowd in racing. They know and love the horses and know how hard the horsemen work to become successful.”

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Rich Ricci, a former bank executive Fleet Street dubbed the Fat Cat in the Hat, after his horse Vautour won the Ryanair Chase on Thursday.CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times

The Zeus of Cheltenham is the gelding Arkle, who in the 1960s won three Cheltenham Gold Cups — the meeting’s premier race, held on the final day. He turned North County Dublin into a destination for horse lovers who wanted to see for themselves if, as legend had it, his bucket was a mash-up of bran, dry oats and six raw eggs sautéed with two bottles of Guinness.

Human feats get their due here as well, whether it is saddling the first five finishers in the Gold Cup as Dickinson did in 1983, with Bregawn on top, or the gambling prowess of a stable hand named Conor Murphy who, in 2012 while working as a groom, turned a $75 bet into a life-changing payout of more than $1.5 million. The winnings allowed Murphy to move to Kentucky and open his own stable.

This meeting has elevated an 8-year-old mare by the name of Annie Power into the pantheon and anointed a quiet American godfather of the National Hunt, the circuit for jumpers.

His name is Rich Ricci, a former bank executive Fleet Street calls the Fat Cat in the Hat. As he strode into the winner’s enclosure, he looked every bit the part. Ricci prefers bespoke suits — the bigger the plaid, the better — and his ever-present trilby is always cocked just so.

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Annie Power, ridden by Ruby Walsh, on her way to victory in the Champion Hurdle Challenge Trophy on Tuesday, Day 1 of the Cheltenham Festival.CreditMichael Steele/Getty Images

Ricci shed some tears along with multitudes of the more than 67,000 here after Annie Power captured the two-mile Champion Hurdle Challenge Trophy on Tuesday to finally win a race on what is considered the National Hunt’s most hallowed ground.

Annie Power’s only two losses had come on this course, and last year in the Mare’s Hurdle she tore hearts out when she was well ahead of the field but fell on the very last jump. You can guess how the near miss endeared her ever more deeply to her Irish backers.

So as Annie Power approached the final jump on opening day, a deafening silence fell over the racetrack with a few “Let’s go Annies” murmured like prayers, only to be shattered with a thunderous roar when she landed safely and cleanly.

“For her to come back is spectacular,” Ricci said. “She got off the deck to win. You can have all the rest of them.”

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Ricci, with Walsh, left, and Vautour, has become one of the dominant owners in National Hunt racing. “I just thought it was beautiful how these horses carried themselves and competed so hard,” he said.CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times

Her performance instantly became the stuff of Festival legend, but as soon as Annie Power was acknowledged, the party raged on. Last year, according to organizers, 265,000 pints of Guinness were drunk over the four days along with 120,000 bottles of wine.

But as Chris Dooley, a columnist for The Irish Times, wrote, civilized behavior does prevail: “Balance requires that it should also be recorded that 45,000 afternoon teas were served to customers over the same period.”

More than a half-billion dollars were bet on the races, no surprise in a country where betting shops are ubiquitous and mobile apps for William Hill and Bet365 are as much the smartphone experience as Twitter or Facebook. Still, on the apron of the racecourse, old-time bookmakers stand on boxes with electronic odds boards behind them and bob like buoys above a sea of gamblers.

In their midst was David Power, one of the founders of Paddy Power, among the world’s largest and most successful bookmaking companies. Power is a multimillionaire, but for Cheltenham he stands on a box and writes tickets beneath the banner of Richard Power Bookmaker, the company his grandfather started in 1898. Even though his company has profited from online and exchange wagering, Power prefers clutching a multicolor Bic pen in his fist and keeping track of his money with a scrawl and a rainbow of colors.

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The trainer Willie Mullins has started laying plans to bring Annie Power back next year for the Gold Cup.CreditPaul Childs/Reuters

“They wheel me out and I go at it,” said Power, 68, as a mob in the bookmakers’ ring pushed his way. “There’s so much energy for these big meets. It’s in my blood.”

There is no real money to be made in the National Hunt — the horses are older and are usually geldings, so there really is not a breeding industry to profit from. The money for everyday races are small and purses in the marquee events pale in comparison to flat racing. Annie Power, for example, is quite a ways from earning $1 million despite winning more than 14 races at the National Hunt’s highest level.

Ricci, however, was a top executive at Barclays, where his salary and bonuses topped $100 million. His Fat Cat in the Hat moniker was in the headlines after the firm paid a fine of roughly $450 million in 2012 for rigging interest rates and cheating its clients.

With time and money on his hands, Ricci spent an afternoon at Sandown Park outside London and fell in love with jumpers.

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Limini — owned by Ricci, ridden by Walsh and trained by Mullins — after winning the Stud Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle.CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times

“I just thought it was beautiful how these horses carried themselves and competed so hard,” Ricci said.

He teamed with the Ireland-based trainer Willie Mullins and quickly became one of the dominant owners in National Hunt racing. Mullins is a taciturn sort with a face seemingly carved from the cliffs of the Irish coast, but he is emblematic of Irish and English jump racing, where horsemanship is an honor and owning jumpers is a pastime rather than a business.

The horses themselves become the stars because they are developed slowly, compete in compact seasons and race until they are age 8, 9, 10 or even older, growing a greater following with each passing year.

After Annie Power’s victory, Mullins began laying plans to bring the mare back next year for the Gold Cup. He compared her to Dawn Run, who was trained by his father, Paddy Mullins, and is the only horse in the history of the Festival to win the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup, the meet’s two most prestigious races.

“When I bought Annie Power,” he said, “I thought, This is the closest mare I have seen to Dawn Run.”

The third member of the team, the jockey Ruby Walsh, is the Stephen Curry of jump riders. He has a Festival-record 52 career victories and is perhaps the only man in the world who can part the crowds in Guinness Village, which overflows with revelers from the time the meeting’s gates open to until their close and makes wearing a bit of Ireland’s favorite beer on your sports coat or dress inevitable. With each victory, Walsh stands up in his stirrups and throws a jubilant uppercut into the air with enough force to knock out an elephant to the full-throated appreciation of his raucous fans.

Walsh, Mullins and Ricci heard that boisterous chorus three separate times on the Festival’s opening day as they met in the winner’s enclosure with Douvan and Vroum Vroum Mag as well as Annie Power. The trio heard it twice more on Thursday when Vautour won the Ryanair Chase and Limini took the Stud Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle. What could possibly top that?

A Gold Cup triumph, of course. Ricci’s horse Djakadam was among the contenders in this renewal of Cheltenham’s gold-plated race on Friday. He could manage only a hard-fought second.

But Ricci was hardly discouraged: Maybe next year with Annie Power?

In a sport where characters are welcome and flying horses are revered, the Fat Cat in the Hat has found a home.

“Look around,” he said. “It’s a beautiful place and home to people who worship these athletes. I’m lucky to be a part of it.”

Correction:

Because of an editing error, an article on March 19 about the Cheltenham Festival, a steeplechase event in horse racing, referred incorrectly to a nickname for the former Barclays executive Rich Ricci, the owner of the mare Annie Power. He earned the nickname Fat Cat in the Hat before Barclays paid a fine in 2012 for rigging interest rates and cheating its clients; the moniker did not arise after that. The article also misstated the amount that Barclays was fined. It was about $450 million, not $700 million.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D8 of the New York edition with the headline: Come Have a Pint. Stay for the Races.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe